PLATO Complementary Science

ESA's PLATO space project stands for PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars. The nominal mission has a 4-year duration, with an extension option of up to 8 years of operations. PLATO's launch is scheduled for December 2026 and after its cruise to L2 and the commissioning, its 26 telescopes will stare for a minimum of 2 years at its identified first southern field-of-view (aka LOPS2). The Core Science program of the mission concerns the detection and characterization of an
unprecedented sample of exoplanets, with emphasis on planets in the habitable zone of Sun-like host stars.  Aside from its Core program, PLATO has an extensive Complementary Science program (PLATO-CS) for 8% of the total data rate. PLATO-CS has the aim to maximize the scientific return of the mission. This will be achieved via a Guest Observer (GO) program open to the worldwide community. In this invited talk, we present an overview and the current status of the PLATO-CS activities. Their aim is to optimally prepare the stellar, galactic, and extragalactic science communities to submit competitive GO proposals by investigating and showcasing the capabilities of the mission. We provide several examples of scientific
topics fitting in PLATO-CS's realm, backed by preparatory work based on existing photometric surveys and/or PLATO simulations.